He’s corny, he’s earnest and he’s genuine. Sure, he has his flaws and he wasn’t a great governor when he held office from 2009 to 2015.

But he was a decent governor. He cut state discretionary spending by 10 percent, trimmed the state payroll by 4,000 employees and OK’d cost-reducing changes in Illinois’ Medicaid and worker’s compensation programs. He signed bills legalizing same-sex marriage and medical marijuana, abolishing the death penalty and reducing pension benefits for new state hires.

On the campaign trail in 2014, Republican challenger and ultimate victor Bruce Rauner blasted the incumbent Quinn as a “failure” for not doing better on yardsticks on which Rauner himself has since not come close to measuring up.

“Miss me yet?” billboards featuring Quinn’s face ought to be erected in every struggling Illinois town where voters were suckered in by Rauner’s fantastic promises.

Quinn, 69, is now running in the Democratic primary for attorney general, and I expect he’d be at least a decent AG, with his populist’s knack for creative indignation.

But he’s had his time in statewide office — four years as treasurer, six as lieutenant governor and six as governor — and it’s time for fresh blood.

The field is large and stacked with good candidates, not a fruitcake or nitwit in the bunch. Former Chicago Park District President Jesse Ruiz, State Rep. Scott Drury, Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman Aaron Goldstein and State Sen. Kwame Raoul each made good cases for themselves at the Tribune’s endorsement interview in January.

Sharon Fairley, however, made the best case.

Her resume stood out. She earned an undergraduate degree from Princeton, an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from the University of Chicago.

She’s a former federal prosecutor, Illinois assistant attorney general and Chicago deputy Inspector general. In 2015, Mayor Rahm Emanuel named her to head the Independent Police Review Authority (now the Civilian Office of Police Accountability), where she earned high marks.

Fairley projected a steely confidence and sharp intellect when sharing our boardroom with her competitors, showing the sort of commanding presence you’d want in an attorney general.

I walked into that meeting not knowing much about her. I walked out positive I was going to vote for her.

Evidently my colleagues on the Editorial Board were similarly impressed. Though I’m not a part of their deliberations about candidates and don’t always agree with their recommendations, the board’s recent endorsement of Fairley channeled my thinking:

“She fought City Hall. She fought police officials. She fought public corruption. She fought for transparency. And no politician owns her,” they wrote, calling her “a fearless and tested change agent who comes to the job with calluses from dealing with politics, but without debilitating conflicts of interest.”

So how’s it going for her? Not so well. A Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll posted Wednesday showed her mired at 3 percent support among self-identified Democratic voters, with Quinn at 18 percent and the party-backed Raoul at 22 percent.

The Tribune’s Rick Pearson noted that the poll “was not adjusted for historical racial and age demographics or turnout” and so may have underrepresented African-American voters and voters from Chicago. And a potentially decisive 39 percent of respondents remained in the “other/don’t know” category.

So Fairley still has a chance, but a poor one. With time running out — the primary is two weeks from Tuesday and early voting is underway — and not enough money yet to go on TV, Fairley looks like a long shot.

I hope this isn’t the last we’ll see of her in the political arena.

Who’s afraid of the big bad Jay?

The Simon Institute poll shows Rauner with 51 percent support and a comfortable, 20-percentage-point lead over his hard-right challenger, state Rep. Jeanne Ives of Wheaton, in the Republican primary.

This explains why the governor is continuing to put so much of his advertising money into attacking Jay Robert “J.B.” Pritzker, the Democratic frontrunner (31 percent in the Simon poll, compared to 21 percent for state Sen. Daniel Biss and 17 percent for businessman Chris Kennedy).

But if Pritzker really is “a bad, bad person,” as Rauner said when talking to reporters Wednesday, why isn’t Rauner keeping quiet, hoping Pritzker hangs on to become the Democratic nominee?

For what it’s worth, Rauner’s over-the-top accusations are telling Democratic voters that he’s most afraid in November of facing Pritzker and Pritzker’s money.